Lykoi
by Catwings1026
Summary: An alternate universe story sprung from the current IDW comics line; if IDW can do zombies during INFESTATION, then Snake Eyes as a werewolf shouldn't be such a longshot... right?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

**Continuity**: _Lykoi _is set, as all my stories are, in the IDW Joeverse - but it's an entirely separate reality string this time (string theory - for every chosen action in this reality, all possiblilities are realized, each in some other string). It's also not a crossover. I'll add a bit of my thoughts about werewolf stories after this chapter, but for now, suffice it to say that I haven't read or seen any of the _Twilight_ books, which seems to be where many folks get their werewolf ideas these days. Sparkly vampires, gah. The "mass conversion rule" of transformation has been mentioned in many, many werewolf stories, so I'm not sure where to attribute THAT.

**Author's Note:** I'm trying something a bit different this time and lifting liberally and directly from actual Cobra Civil War comic book settings and scripts, but adjusting them slightly to my own plotline - **this is intentional**. I'm not trying to hide anything, nor make pretense that I am actually Chuck Dixon, or trying to steal his original work. I want to see if I'm able to write around another author's existing work, for one, and also trying my hand at adapting a visual media to print. The tie-in market - movies and television, largely - is a massive beast, and can be a moderately lucrative one for a writer who doesn't mind the "translation" genre. I prefer to write my own material, as do most writers, but in this economy, it behooves a writer to see if she can pick what low-hanging fruit there is available. Sooo - this is "homework" for me, as well as fun. Those who have read the titles included will, hopefully, get that "deja vu" sort of feeling, and find where my reality splits off pleasant rather than jarring.

This episode starts with _Snake Eyes: Cobra Civil War #0._

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><p><strong>Lykoi <strong>

by Catwings1026

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><p><strong>Bottineu County, North Dakota<strong>

They were dead.

All of them, dead - scattered among the trees, lying amid the leaf-litter, eyes staring. Dojo, Banzai, Nunchuk. Snake Eyes crouched, reading the ground for signs, clues, anything that could explain the massacre of the men he'd trained himself.

"We should call in a crime investigation unit," Lawhound was saying.

_Typical MP, _Snake Eyes thought. _Cop first, soldier second. _

"This was Snake Eyes' unit," Scarlett replied, and he could almost hear the look she shot at Lawhound. "We let him figure it out."

_Thanks, Red. _He knew his friend and teammate was just behind him, and even in the rising miasma of anger, grief, and confusion, he felt a flicker of warmth in knowing that, literally and figuratively, she had his back. The scene before him drove away that warmth even before it had a chance to settle, however, leaving him with cold fingers of rage clawing at him.

_Who did this? How? WHY? _He could almost feel the dead men's eyes on him, accusatory. _And... why them? Why JUST them? _He could hear Scarlett behind him, speaking quietly - but as the fury rose in him, the words faded to mere sound behind the pounding of blood in his ears.

He held up a finger, signalling Scarlett.

"There was one attacker," she said, translating for Lawhound.

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><p>Lawhound's gaze roamed the woods about them, but as the ninja moved slowly among the bodies, face turned to the ground, Scarlett's eyes never left Snake Eyes. She could feel the anger building in him... felt it almost as a palpable force, a tension that set her skin prickling, primed her instincts to fight, or flee. Her every sense was hyper-alert. This was not good. Not good at all.<p>

_I've got to get him out of here. Got to get him away from Lawhound, at least. He can take a lot... but this... _She turned to the MP, nodded to the ridge where they'd set down. "Have your unit secure the perimeter and keep the helo running."

Snake Eyes, seeming to take her cue, moved off. _At least he's still listening. _

"When will you be back?" Lawhound's eyes flashed between Snake Eyes, already making his way down the slope, and Scarlett.

"When we have answers." Following Snake Eyes, she noted the set of his shoulders, the slight unevenness of his pace... control was part of his very essence, the core of his being, and it was clear to her that now, just now, he was struggling to maintain that control. He had the right to be here, of course... these were his men, his hand-picked team...

_But just because he has the right to be doesn't mean he SHOULD be._

They found T'JBang next, sprawled out on the cold earth. T'Gin Zu, meters away, had died with his back to a tree, staring at a massive trunk fallen long ago across the clearing. They had gone down fighting, both of them... the evidence clear on the earth about them, the wounds fresh, the bodies still warm.

_How did this happen? An ambush... but these were our best fighters, next to Snake Eyes. And how did they get our command protocols? It was planned... carefully planned... and whoever did this didn't want Snake Eyes on the ground when they took out his team. Why?_

"The attacker could still be in the area..." She said it more to herself than to Snake Eyes. He knew it... every muscle in him showed that he knew it, and what was more, he _wanted _it so. "How could one person do all this?"

_No - it's two attackers_, Snake Eyes signed to her from where he crouched by T'Gin Zu - and froze. Scarlett heard it, too - both their heads swiveled to the fallen tree. Again, a low groan... a rustle. A silent signal passed between them and they leaped the tree, he taking point, she backing him.

"Bushido!" _Thank God, at least one of them made it... _The injured man was half-hidden by the deadfall, and where he'd dragged himself through the leaves to its scant shelter, the bared ground was streaked with mud of soil and blood, but he was - for the moment, at least - alive. Scarlett was down beside him in a heartbeat, checking his eyes, his vital signs. "Who did this? Are they still here? What are we up against?"

"Two... of them..." Bushido's voice was barely audible. His pulse, when she found it, was thready and light. He anticipated her next question, meeting her gaze, his eyes then flickering to Snake Eyes. "Snake Eyes... they looked like Snake Eyes..." The radio was already in her hand as Bushido sagged slightly, his face etched with sheer agony.

"Scarlett to Lawhound... I need a medical team on my twenty, now!" Snake Eyes was turning, and she half-rose, not wanting to leave Bushido, but knowing what was coming... "Follow us downhill. Keep your guns up - we're not alone."

"On our way, Red. How're we going to find you pronto? This is a big forest."

Snake Eyes squeezed off a round, the staccato reports echoing through the forest.

"Follow the sound of gunfire!" She turned back to Bushido, coaxing him into a more comfortable position - until the sound of feet crashing through underbrush made her turn.

_Oh, shit._

"Snake! Wait for the team!" But he was already charging off through the trees. _Damn, damn, damn, damn... _Scarlett shoved her gun into Bushido's hands. "Keep firing until help gets here."

Then she was running, tearing down the hill and through the trees, trying desperately to catch up to Snake Eyes before... but he wouldn't, would he? He had some sense, even if his anger was shoving it to the side, right? He wouldn't risk...

_Oh, no... no, no, no..._

She saw the weapons first, tossed carelessly to the left and right in a manner she knew Snake Eyes would never consider if he was thinking right at all. He'd gone past the breaking point, that invisible line only the two of them knew existed, and now...

She passed weapons belts, baldric, uzi, katana... and then the boots. The shirt. The pants. No undergarments... well, of course.

_The ninja goes commando. This should surprise you, all things considered? _

She put on a burst of speed, ignoring thorns and underbrush, following the sound of his flight and the trail he'd left. He was shedding clothing as he ran, which slowed him - but still, he had the lead on her, and if she didn't catch him... well, she refused to think on that.

_We'll NEVER be able to explain it to the team... _Below her, the woods opened onto field, leading down to a ramshackle farm building of some sort - and two figures pelting for it. Then Snake Eyes broke from the woods behind them, and seeing him, Scarlett staggered to a halt, knowing she wouldn't catch him now.

_Shit._

Two hundred-plus pounds of muscle and black fur streaked across the grass on four legs, rapidly closing the distance between trees and buildings. If knowing that a Joe team was hot on their trail hadn't given incentive to the murderers to make their escape quickly, a glance behind to reveal a gigantic, snarling black wolf on their heels certainly would.

_Don't do this, Snake, don't do this... _She lurched into a run again, pushed herself to go faster, nearly tripping and sending herself sprawling on the uneven ground. An engine roar, and the sound of splintering wood. Two "trouble bubbles" shattered the edges of the caved-in roof as they lifted off, leaving Snake Eyes to howl his fury to an uncaring sky from within the ruined building. When he broke cover again, he was already tracking them, following their flight path as best he could.

Scarlett angled her headlong flight, cutting across on a diagonal to intercept the maddened wolf. He was in a killing rage now, and he was as dangerous to himself and his team as he would be to any enemy. She had to stop him. When he paused, half-turning at her approach, she leaped, wrapping arms around his neck as she barrelled into him, the momentum sending both of them rolling.

He turned on her then, eyes entirely wolf-amber with none of the man she knew behind them, and he snarled as he sank his teeth deep into her forearm. She cried out, slamming a fist down on his sensitive muzzle.

"OW! Dammit, Snake, LET GO!"

He released her, staggering back. As he tasted her blood on his teeth, the expression in his eyes shifted - the color lightening to something like gray, the animal rage taking on an expression of horror. She gripped her arm, fumbling at her belt for the first aid pouch, for the gauze and bandage roll, swearing a blue streak at Snake Eyes, at herself, at the world in general...

"You big, stupid idiot! How the HELL am I going to explain this if someone notices?" She was so angry, she barely felt the pain. Her eyes snapped green sparks at him. "Your equipment is all over the place... your uniform... you'll be damned lucky if you can get Changed and dressed before Lawhound and the others catch up. Get moving. NOW!"

His eyes narrowed, hackles rising, and his lip lifted in a silent snarl. He still wasn't fully under his own control... she knew the raw pain in him was affecting his judgement, making the wolf in him ascendant. He wanted to kill something. And, whether man or wolf, even a fully rational Snake Eyes didn't appreciate a dressing-down. She paused in wrapping the wound long enough to level her gaze at him, rising to her feet to give herself the advantage of height, shoulders back, fists balled, staring him down. No words, just the language of the body.

_I'll fight you if I have to, _she let her posture tell him. _Stand down! _

It was something she'd never do, not under any ordinary circumstances... they were friends, equals, and dominance displays had no place between them. Right now, however, she needed to assert herself over the wolf in him. To remind him who she was... who HE was.

He broke the stare first, dropping his head and lowering both ears and tail - not flattening the ears, not tucking the tail in complete submission, but dropping both enough to show that he would not challenge her again. Animal instinct had trumped his humanity when he'd fueled his Change with rage, and now she'd used that instinct to her advantage - it was a rare male wolf who would challenge a female. When he looked at her again, she could see that the human blue had returned, replacing the amber of the wolf's animal bloodlust, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"Go on," she said, more gently now. "I'll take another path up the hill and head off the team. Buy us some time." She turned her attention back to her arm, to the blood rapidly soaking the gauze pad and bandages, binding the wound as tightly as she dared. It was bad, but could be worse... deep punctures, but no tears; he hadn't savaged her, thank God.

She caught his departure in her peripheral vision - then sensed, rather than saw, him stop and return to her side. In his wolf form he was massive, larger than any natural wolf; his head was above level with her waist. He paused beside her and, for the briefest of moments, leaned into her, his muzzle brushing her wounded arm.

She stopped, stared at him... it was the first time since she'd known him that he'd touched her in wolf form, and he spoke into her mind in the way he could only do in wolfskin.

_I'm sorry. _She met his gaze, the pain there telegraphing itself to her, becoming her pain, too.

"It's okay, Snake. I know." She reached out, caressed the side of his lupine face, felt him flinch away. Touch was something he was unaccustomed to in any form, and she swore at herself for pushing him too far.

Before she could speak again, he was gone, loping back towards the woods.

- To Be Continued –

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><p><strong>A<strong>**uthor's Maunderings:** It's hard to write original werewolf stories. So much good fiction already exists, with dynamic werewolf sociology and pack structure, that it seems you're going to be stepping on someone's toes no matter what. Take simply the name issue - what werewolves call themselves. Wolfen is taken (Whitley Streiber's novel of the same name), lycan (the _Underworld _series, though the term was in common use before that), lukoi (Laurell K. Hamilton's _Anita Blake_ series). I've chosen _Lykoi_ - going back to the orginal Greek - but someone else has probably thought of that, too.

Even the concept of werewolves serving in the military has been done - I loved Poul Anderson's _Operation Chaos_ and _Operation Luna _(they are where this original idea came from - a werewolf soldier falling for his red-haired witch teammate), and have on my "to-read" stack _Kitty Goes to War, _a recent addition to the popular Kitty Norville series by Carrie Vaughn, because it deals with both PTSD and werewolf soldiers; I'm ravening my way through the earlier novels so I can read everything in order.

For what it's worth, I am no fan of "anthro" werewolves... human/wolf hybrids who are largely human-shaped. In my world, werewolves look exactly like very large wolves. In the Change, mass remains constant, so if you're a two hundred pound soldier, you're almost twice the size of your average gray wolf, who generally tops out at an uncommon maximum of 120 lbs. (Larger wolves have been recorded, particularly in far northern climates, but even then the world record was 190 lbs after WWII in the Ukraine, and no recorded wolf has come anywhere close to that since.) The main difference between my werewolves and others I've read about is the eyes - in my world, a werewolf, so long as he retains his ability to think rationally at a human level, retains his human eye color. If you have a wolf the size of a small pony with "normal" wolf eyes (amber, brown, gold, or green-gold) bearing down on you - don't try to reason with him, or wonder if his eyes are normally brown in human form. Run.

I'm not sure how long this will be all told, so I'll post in episodes and backtrack to revise if necessary. Commentary and feedback are most welcome.


	2. Chapter 2

**Lykoi **

by Catwings1026

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><p><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm not Chuck Dixon, have no designs on his original work, and mean no offense - I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

**Author's Note: **If you're still reading, you know I'm trying an alternate reality IDW-based story, and that I'm lifting reference scenes directly from the comic. Still following the Cobra Civil War plotline, but there's a lengthy flashback to the months after the Pit became operational. Many thanks to TV for her ceaseless encouragement and first read-throughs. Commentary welcome... though I'm only sporadically on Twitter, and will be on less in the future, so I probably won't get your tweets if you communicate that way. It was sheer fluke that I got the first set at all!

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><p><strong>Just Beyond the Pit, Two Weeks Later<strong>

Under the moon, the cool desert air folding around her like a friend's welcome hug, Scarlett found her arroyo, one carved deep into the side of a bluff, glanced around, then dropped below the sight of any casual observer. Not that she expected to be watched... there were no live sentries aboveground at the Pit. All surveillance was done by security cameras in strategic locations, giving underground watchers a 360 of the land in every direction.

Only... she knew where each camera was, had helped install many of them herself, and had arranged for one to have a convenient blind spot, courtesy of a short memory loop.. Not enough to endanger the base, but enough for a single person to pop through, if she knew the precise timing and sequence.

Her mind was roiling with recent events, and she didn't like the ache that had taken up residence in the pit of her stomach. A run was exactly what she needed right now.

_Just not along the usual trails. And not in sneaks and a tee shirt._

She shucked off the shoes, socks, workout gear, underthings, folding each neatly and tucking them into a waterproof pouch, then sliding that into the camouflaged alcove she'd scraped out for that very purpose. Her eyes drifted involuntarily to a second hiding spot, one somewhat longer and deeper, some way down the ditch. She didn't need to check it to see that it, too, contained a pouch of clothing and weapons.

_He's on patrol._ She'd discovered him in wolfskin that way, almost a year ago. Snake Eyes made a patrol of the lands surrounding the Pit like clockwork each night, and she knew each of his varying routes by heart, had joined him almost nightly since that first meeting.

_But not tonight. _Her bare skin tingled as a breeze touched it, and she sank to her knees, stretching both hands out before her, fingers extending as far as each could reach until they touched the powdery earth. They began to tingle, then to buzz, as she willed the Change to come.

It started with her extremities... fingers contracting, folding into themselves, flesh going liquid for the briefest of moments, reshaping itself. Claws protruded from where knuckle had been, pads thickened under her palms. Smooth, coarse fur almost as red as her own hair sprouted, flooded up her arms, darkening and thickening as it reached her shoulders.

She kicked both legs out behind, arched her back, feeling muscle and sinew and bone shifting, rearranging - some said the Change hurt, but to her it was a welcome pain, so sharp and cutting that it sliced through her human heart, severing the ache there for the blessed moments it took for her wolf to emerge. Her mind was calm, at peace, and she felt as though she hovered above her own body, watching as various parts lengthened, narrowed, and mass rearranged itself into the physical reflection of her inner self.

Naked human skin was soon replaced with a pelt of thick, luxuriant fur - not the black of Snake Eyes's wolf, but red-golden and cinnamon tipped with black, shading darker along her spine and tail. His wolf was a variant of _Canis lupus_, the gray wolf whose population had once spread from Europe through Asia. She was built along the lines of _Canis rufus_, the American red wolf, once native to her own beloved Georgia and all of the American southlands. Compared to Snake Eyes, she was small in wolf form, with a sleeker coat and no neck ruff to speak of - but her red wolf was easily the size of a natural gray wolf, and could never be confused with a coyote as real red wolves sometimes were. Her ears, almost coppery, were considerably larger than his, too - and in wolf form, if he was larger and stronger, her senses, particularly hearing, were superior.

_And I'm faster than he is, too. _If she'd dared to Change in North Dakota, she could have caught him easily, even with his lead. The Change took mere minutes... she could force it, if she felt the need; strong emotion could speed the release of her inner wolf, as could raised adrenaline. Tonight, however, she allowed it to come naturally.

Once completed, she shook herself from nose to tail-tip, feeling her heart lift at the sensation of air coursing under the guard-hairs and about her ears, at the sudden heightening of her senses - it could easily have been day, so sharp was her wolf's night vision, and the stillness of the desert night was now alive with an embroidery of sound. Bats twittered and chirped like birds as they coursed the sky in hunting-flight. A pack of coyotes, too distant for human ears to detect, sang with the year's newest pups. Miles distant, the river chuckled to itself between its wide banks, and closer, the hum of the Pit's electrical currents was clearly audible to one who knew what to listen for.

And none of that even touched the array of scents now flooding her... new scrub growth and cacti plump from a recent rain spread green perfume over the dry stone-and-dust desert scent. A feral cat had passed through the arroyo some time ago, and a fox. Lizard and snake smell were everywhere, as were the somewhat spicy fragrances of insects, scorpions, and spiders. She could not hear the owl as it swooped overhead - but she could smell her, smell the tang of the bloody mouse she was bringing back to the nest.

With her jaw dropping into a lupine grin, she bounded up the slope of the arroyo and into the night, reveling in the sudden symphony around her. She pushed her new, stronger body to run, run, run, for the sheer joy of feeling the earth pounding past beneath her paws and the wind in her fur... it never got old for her, the Change, and the joy she felt in its afterglow never dimmed.

She was wolf.

She was free.

The world sang around her, filling her ears, carrying the pains and cares of the human world away like a stream carries dead leaves... at least while she could run. It was the gift of the wolf to those born Lykoi. It was her people's heritage.

Scarlett had been raised in a loving family pack as both pup and child, raised knowing both wolfling and girl as her natural form - there was no comparison between them, no differentiation. There had been rules, of course - rules to keep her safe, to keep her pack hidden - and she'd never challenged them. Simply because most of her waking time was spent as woman, however, did not mean she was any less wolf. And when she was wolf, she was no less woman. She was in wolfskin the same Shana O'Hara as she was in civilian clothing or in uniform - friend, teammate, daughter, sister.

_My wolf is half of who I am. I'm never going to be JUST Shana O'Hara... just Scarlett. Thank God I'm genetically Lykoi, and not a slave to the moon... I can let my wolf out whenever and wherever I need to. _

If she could have one wish, one thing that was beyond her at the moment, it would be to howl. To sing with a pack as she'd done so often in her youth. She'd sung with coyotes on occasion, far beyond the Pit, but their song was different, and she didn't know all the "words." There were no natural wolves anywhere near, not for hundreds of miles.

Still, the song was within her, and she could sing alone, if she wished, if she was far enough beyond her teammates' ears - but she did not dare, just now, to do so. It might attract... attention.

_I'll be damned if I sing for HIM tonight. _

Snake Eyes.

Until recently, until tonight, she'd considered him the closest thing she had to a pack since she'd dispersed from her family. She'd thought he felt the same. There had been... something... there, right from the first, and that something had strengthened once they'd recognized each other for what they were. She hadn't realized how much she missed her family, her pack, until she'd found him.

_We can manage alone... but it's not natural. Wolves need a pack. _And the Joes, no matter the loyalty that bound them tighter than any sworn oath, were a poor substitute for a pack... _You can't have a pack when you can't show your wolf freely._

She pushed the thought away by increasing her speed.

_Run. Run. Be in the now - let the rest go. _She was already leaving the territories they regularly patrolled, pushing her body to its limits, reveling in the burn of her muscles, the rhythm of paws on packed ground. She could run forever, this way.

She sensed the presence, behind and just off her left flank, before she heard him... Snake Eyes was eerily silent, even in wolfskin, when he chose to be. She could outrun him... he'd never yet caught her, on those rare occasions when she'd been able to tease him into a chase. Just now, she felt that she could easily double her speed to escape the human hurt that flooded back as he neared...

He was going out again... another mission, more his own than the team's. Off to the ends of the Earth, chasing after the man who'd ordered the deaths of his unit. She knew he wouldn't stop until he found this Vikrim Khallikhan and one of them was dead, though the mission was, ostensibly, simply surveillance. She knew why he had to go, had felt the pain in him; she'd back him every step of the way, only...

_Only I'm not going with him this time. _

"It's nothing personal, Scarlett." That was what Hawk had said, after he'd ordered her to stay behind. Her skills were needed more in intel. Not that it mattered... Snake Eyes had already chosen his team, and she wasn't part of it.

She allowed him to draw nearer, near enough to glance over and see that his blue eyes were unreadable, shielded from her by his own iron control over his wolf. She could touch his emotions barely more than she had been able to in human form - a turmoil within, seething, but held back. It had been that way since North Dakota - like seeing fire through a wall of ice.

_Where are you going, Scarlett? _Well, he was speaking to her... that was a start. She didn't reply. _Scarlett. _

She glanced at him again - he'd pulled level with her, had matched his pace to hers.

_I felt like running alone tonight. _She couldn't keep the sting out of her mental voice. _"It's nothing personal."_

He looked at her oddly, but said nothing for a long while. Fine, she thought. Not. A. Problem.

_I'm sorry you're angry, _he said at last. _But Hawk is right. They need you in intel._

_And you don't?_ She didn't say it, shielded it from his thoughts, but there it was. _We're friends. We're PACK. We look out for each other, no matter what... it's what we do._

She skidded to a halt, wheeling to face him as he overshot her. _I'm running alone tonight, Snake Eyes. Go finish your patrol. _

She didn't want to be angry with him. She didn't want to feel resentful that it would be Helix at his back, not her. She didn't want to feel like she was losing her best friend... her pack... to a vendetta.

And before he could reply, she turned from him and leaped to a full gallop, pushing herself to her outer limits of speed, assuring that he wouldn't even try to catch her. When she risked a glance back, he had already gone.

She closed her eyes for a moment, but the peace she'd felt was gone, sucked into the desert soil like raindrops... or tears. She hated how she felt right now, hated that she couldn't let it go... she was stronger than this. She was better than this. If he could divide their human from their wolf selves, well, fine for him. But she wouldn't be sliced into pieces just to make him more comfortable.

The sky was brighter ahead - the lights of the small town hunkered on the banks of the reservoir. She slowed, stopped, scenting the air. She hadn't meant to run so far in this direction, hadn't realized she was so near already. The town didn't have a large population, but still... Better safe than sorry. She could see some sort of vehicle a long ways off - a pickup truck. No, two... parked out by the edge of the reservoir access road. Firelight flickered between them.

_Probably some good old boys out night fishing._ Keeping a wary eye and ear in that direction, she turned.

She didn't see the muzzle flash, but she felt the impact of the bullet miliseconds after she heard the sharp report of the gun.

"Whoooooo-EE!" crowed a male voice, silhouette rising up from behind a stand of scrub. "Thousand yard club, here I come!"

Then everything went dark.

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><p><strong>The Desert Surrounding the Pit<strong>

**One Year Earlier**

It was the best of nights in early spring, a night with a bite still in the air, a night that called to her to run. She deserved it, too... they'd been working hard at getting the Pit operational, fighting with residual viruses and virtual deadfalls planted within the computer system, and after hours of hunching over keyboards beside Breaker, she was beginning to feel like her back was bent over in a permanant curve.

She'd established her habit of going for an evening run from the day they'd moved into the Pit, cheerfully turning down all offers of companionship, assuring that she'd have nobody looking twice at her for heading out alone. _Just Scarlett out for her evening run, _she wanted them to think. _Nothing odd about that. _

She'd also held her wolf firmly in check, hard as it was to do so, until her cover was well and truly established - until she was certain, entirely sure, that she wouldn't be followed or watched. Eventually, even Duke stopped offering to run with her - and tonight, after a final wave to the boys hanging out around the quonset hut, she'd finally allowed herself to leave the trail she'd been making her own, slip down into the arroyo she'd found, and Change.

She hadn't realized something was amiss until the Change was complete - her human eyes and ears hadn't detected anything out of the ordinary. She'd been distracted, perhaps, with the eager giddiness of finally getting into wolfskin again. It had been too long...

So she hadn't noticed the stillness before the Change - but she did immediately after.

The territory immediately around the arroyo was unnaturally quiet... but it was a lack of sound she recognized at once. It was the stillness that falls over an area when a predator has moved through recently... when a hawk stoops on a bird feeder, when a cat passes through a field. All small living things were still, tucked into hiding or frozen in place, waiting for it to be safe to move once more. She'd used that very sort of silence, in fact, to win at playing hide-and-seek with her brothers, so long ago. They'd never been able to resist grabbing a snack while playing, so all she needed to do was listen for the quietest areas of the forest to find them. They'd never caught on - and she'd never told them how she did it.

_So something's been through here, recently, _she thought. _Not TOO recently... but recently enough. The critters were probably about to break cover when I showed up. _She was sure of that - there was a definite tension in the air. But who, or what, had been there?

She cast about in the soft sand of the arroyo... her own sneaker treads, her own foot and pawprints; the usual prints of localized fauna. Nothing different. She sniffed... and froze, one forepaw raised.

_Wolf. Human. That way. _Her nose pointed her west, down the arroyo. The first half of the scent was so startling that she had to sniff again, to make sure it wasn't the local coyotes or some lost dog. But no, there was definitely no mistaking the scent - not a natural wolf, but wolf still. And the human flavor - the only way the scents could be so intermingled was if the wolf and the human were proceeding together in company. Which would be unlikely, to say the very least. So...

_Lykoi. _Her heart thudded a bit at the realization. _Like me... _She had the briefest of hopes that maybe, just maybe, one of her brothers had managed to track her here... but no, she knew their scents as intimately as she knew their faces, their voices. This wolf was a stranger.

She was sure the stranger was male, at least. She'd had enough experience to tell the difference. But more than that... she could not guess at identity, or even if it was a Joe at all.

_I can't scent worth a darn in human form... and I haven't gotten close enough as wolf to be able to figure out who's who, scentwise. _She typically avoided the entire area of the Pit; even if the Joes were her teammates, they were still humans... male humans with guns, at that... and as a result, they were not safe.

_Now... the question is, has he scented me? _The arroyo was her favored Changing spot, so her scent certainly lingered here. She was careful to brush away evidence of her wolf tracks from the sand after returning to human form - she didn't want to risk a stray hunter, or a Joe out this direction, to note so many in one place. But the stranger's scent was not in the immediate area; it was being carried to her on an oblique wind, likely from further down the gully where the arroyo made a sharp bend around a bluff. There were no tracks anywhere in the vicinity that said "wolf." _So... probably not. _

Muzzle low, ears pricked, she trotted down the sandy washout, hugging the wall. The scent grew stronger as she moved, confirming that she was on the right trail. When she found the first boot tread, she froze.

_That's military issue. Not a hunter's boot. Not sneakers, or moccasins. Combat boots. _Her eyes widened. _He IS one of us..._

From the length and depth of the print, she knew he was tall. Well-muscled... 225, maybe 250 in weight. She pulled back, regarding the pattern of steps, playing out the earlier scene in her mind.

_He came down the rockfall... I bet if I went up there, he laid a false trail or two to hide where he came down. These footsteps... except where he jumped off the rock, they're light. Careful to stay on pebble or harder ground. It's someone who doesn't want to be noticed. And he's good at not being noticed._

And all of this before he had Changed. Scarlett ran down a list of personnel in her mind's eye... BeachHead was good at covert ops, and Spirit, of course. _And Spirit would know how to move in the open desert, too. _Dusty? She wasn't sure if he was as careful as this, but he definitely knew how to move in arid climates to avoid leaving a trail. She'd trained with Duke, and eliminated him immediately - frankly, he was more the ambush predator, digging in and lying in wait, and not the best at covert movement.

But the name at the top of her list was confirmed when she scented steel.

Snake Eyes.

Nobody else kept that much polished metal on his person, and as she moved past the human prints, the smell became stronger. Steel with no hint of gun oil was heavy in the air, though she did smell firearms close by. When the scent became mixed with the aroma of fresh-dug earth, she cast about and found the hole. It was concealed behind a thorny tangle of brush, and while freshly-dug, he had spread the castings about, blending them with the sand and pebbles so that no visible sign of fresh dig remained.

_Very clever! _Her father, who had been meticulous in teaching his children how to create a safe place to hide their human clothing, would approve. _Of course, Dad always preferred us to Change indoors, or in a safe location - but he made sure we could do it anywhere, if we had to. Only someone who can follow a scent would be able to find this, and Dad said we have less to worry about from other Lykoi than from people. People who find your clothes might take them away... Lykoi, unless it's a lone enemy, won't. And if it's an enemy and you don't have your pack close by - well, clothing is the least of your worries, isn't it?_

A quick poke into the bolt-hole with her night-sensitive eyes confirmed her instincts... yes, it was definitely Snake Eyes. She could smell his blades, his katana, and nobody else wore so much black. She inhaled deeply, committing his human scent to memory, then turned back to the open ground.

She found where he'd Changed, next - the paw prints overlaying the marks of hands, feet, knees. She blinked, placed her own paw beside one, blinked again.

_He's ENORMOUS. Or... well, the northern gray wolves have the biggest paws, but Dad used to talk about the buffalo wolves in the midwest, too. They were supposed to be direct lines from the dire wolves, way-back-when. But the natural buffalo wolves were all exterminated by 1926. _Still, that didn't rule out Lykoi of that shape... Lykoi tended to have wolf forms that reflected their ethnic heritage; hence, Scarlett's family ran as red wolves, while a family from Canada would have more white-furred arctic wolves among them.

_And Snake Eyes... someone said he was from the Midwest, but raised in Japan? Do they even HAVE wolves in Japan?_

One more thing to ask him, then.

When she found him.

And, to her way of thinking, there was only one good way to do that...

- To Be Continued -


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm not Chuck Dixon, have no designs on his original work, and mean no offense - I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

**Author's Note:** This is a continuation of the flashback from Chapter 2, but here we shift temporarily to Snake Eyes's perspective. Scarlett's greeting gestures to Snake Eyes are accurate peer-to-peer gray wolf greetings among packmates where rank is not in question; the "head butting" is actually scent rubbing – packmates will rub against one another with face and head to leave their scent behind and absorb the scent of their packmate. It's interesting to note that current science indicates that most of what we know about wolf behavior is actually wrong; the vast percentage of data came from observing CAPTIVE wolf populations, often made up of unrelated individuals. As a result, dominance behaviors were frequent and highly visible. We now know that wild wolf packs are made up of family members who do not need such over-the-top reminders of rank and place; you follow the alphas because they're your parents, and that's that.

My theory is that a family pack like Scarlett's would behave very much like a wild wolf family – but a werewolf pack made up of unrelated human lycanthropes would behave more like the unrelated captive wolves, where rank and dominance are constantly in flux.

* * *

><p><strong>Elsewhere, that same night...<strong>

Snake Eyes took the bluff at a steady lope and stopped, ears twitching, and surveyed the Pit from his perch. Nothing moving in the area, other than local wildlife. He'd seen Scarlett heading out for her nightly run as he began his circuit, but didn't worry much - his black pelt provided the same camouflage as his uniform, and in the night, he'd see and hear her long before she saw him in the unlikely event their paths crossed.

It was good, so good, to be in wolfskin again. To be out under the moon, unencumbered by weapons, able to run and feel the wind on his face. It was something he'd never have again, unless he Changed... his human face was a ruin, and while he had no shyness about showing it around the barracks when off-duty, he couldn't ever show it to the world again. Not even for a run in this remote place. Too risky.

He considered, for just a moment, dropping back into the canyonlands and following Scarlett's trail. He didn't like the idea of any Joe being off-base without backup - even here, too much could happen. A twisted ankle, an undercut bank that gave way, a flash flood fed by rains miles away... terrorists were not the only threat, and a Joe out of commission because of injury only put the rest of the team at a disadvantage. And he especially didn't like the idea of Scarlett on the injured list - not for such a stupid reason as not wanting to run with a buddy.

She just wanted some time and space to think quietly - that was the reason she gave. He knew she'd cheerfully turned down all offers on those grounds... and some not so cheerfully; he'd actually overheard her taking Duke down a peg or two for his overprotective concern.

He'd considered just joining her once she was out, whether she agreed or no - easier to apologize than to ask permission. She wouldn't be able to do much about it, unless she tried to outrun him, and he doubted she would keep up a verbal protest for more than a mile or two.

_It's not like she can say I talk too much, after all._

But she'd been so skittish around him since the accident that he really didn't dare. He'd thought, after the mediation, that he'd managed to show her that they could be friends... she'd seemed to unbend a bit. But he didn't want to make any overt motions towards her - not the way the Army rumor mill always ran, and not with so many eyes that would mistake an offer of friendship for an invitation to share a rack...

_Besides, if I took to running with Scarlett, I'd never get out on my own... _

But if he took to trailing her in wolfskin, then he'd have her back AND his run, and make the patrols he wanted to make. That was a third thing that had been on his mind - he didn't agree with leaving all surveillance to cameras; cameras couldn't hear anywhere near as well as he could. It would slow him down, yes, but once she was safely back at the Pit, he would be able to cut loose...

_Why do I suddenly feel like the Big Bad Wolf stalking Little Red Riding Hood?_

_Snake Eyes, what big teeth you have! _

He chuckled to himself, wheeling and trotting down the bluff to where he could catch her scent.

When he heard the howl rising under the moon, he stopped dead, transfixed. He'd listened to the coyotes from a distance... heard wolves singing in Yellowstone... but this was unlike either. One voice, rich and mellow, fluting up to the stars - and embedded in the song, a message that telegraphed its meaning into his mind without the need for spoken words:

_Here - I'm here. Where are you?_

He tilted his head back and replied before he could think not to - something in him, something deep and lupine, circumvented his human brain, and he felt the howl vibrating in his chest.

_Here - I'm..._

But as soon as it started, he bit down, forced his wolf back, ears flattening - _stupid, stupid, stupid! There are NO wolves around here... howling will get you noticed! What if Scarlett hears, and reports it? _

_She'd think coyote, not wolf. There are plenty of coyotes out here. She wouldn't know the difference. How could she?_

_But if there are no wolves... who's THAT?_

The song changed slightly, and he detected a joyful note, now.

_Coming! _the stranger-voice sang. _Coming now!_

How was he understanding the words? Wolves didn't speak - barks and yips were more punctuation than dialogue. And the howl wasn't language - it was song, and while it didn't translate to words in his ears, his mind and heart understood... which had to mean that the singer was like him.

A werewolf.

It floored him completely, and he didn't know whether to fall back into cover, or confront the newcomer. He'd never met another like himself... though he'd assumed that there must be others, somewhere. The Soft Master had told him stories of the _o-kami, _the spirit wolves of Japan who could assume human forms at will, who would return to the island when mankind's time was through.

_They thought I was a gaijin o-kami - it was the only way they could understand the Change._

But never, in any of his travels, had he met any living shapeshifter - had only heard stories, some too absurd to be believed. He'd met urban enclaves of would-be vampires, heard of bored teens and twentysomethings playing at being "furries" with surgically enhanced fangs, pointed ears, whiskers...

_But I've never met anyone like me..._

It certainly looked like he was about to now. He dropped back as the moon slid behind a cloud, finding the shadow of a nearby ledge, and stilled himself there... his fur would blend into the shadows, he was downwind to mask his scent, and he knew how to conceal the sound of he breathing even in wolf form. It didn't sound like the stranger was hostile - but there was no sense taking risks.

He heard the newcomer's light cantering approach and a whiffling intake of breath - someone scenting the air. The other wolf stopped, and he could see that it was female - she was considerably smaller than he, about the size of a timber wolf, but with a sleeker pelt that shaded from auburn on her legs to warm cinnamon across her body. Black ticking appeared down her back and tail, creamy fawn began on her cheeks and cascaded down her throat and belly. Her ears were large and pricked forward, her eyes, rimmed in black, shone a brilliant human green. When the moon emerged from the cloud cover, it highlighted her guard hairs with silver fairy-light, and he felt his breath catch.

She was beautiful... the most lovely thing on four legs he'd ever set eyes on.

Her eyes danced over the area, sparkling with obvious good humor - and despite his reservations, he could not remain in hiding. He stepped into the open, and her eyes found his at once, crinkling with pleasure.

_Snake Eyes! I didn't know if you'd answer! _The voice in his mind took him entirely by surprise, and he shook his head violently. It was familiar, but he couldn't place it… female, with the softest of Southern inflection. He stepped back a pace, eyes wide.

He didn't have time to reply before she bounded forward, paws dancing, playfully nudging his muzzle with her nose, butting her head into his neck. Her touch sent jitters of electricity through him, and he backed up again, trying to put space between them. She followed close, dropped into what he recognized as a play-bow, tail lashing, and grinned at him.

_Who... _he concentrated on the thought, trying to will it into her mind, as her thoughts had entered his. _Who... are... you?_

She seemed amused by the question, and mimicked his halting mind-voice in her reply. _I'm... SCARLETT! _

_Scarlett? _An image of her human form burst into his mind and he felt, rather than heard, her laughter.

_Yes! You big goof, has it been that long since you've talked to another Lykoi? _She nudged him again with her muzzle, and again he stepped back. She seemed to be in constant motion, dancing about him - he was getting a bit dizzy, though part of that was simply her nearness. His wolf wanted to respond to her exuberance, wanted to run with her, dance with her - but he didn't know how, and was frozen in place.

_Lykoi? _he managed. His head really was spinning now, and for the first time she seemed to notice his discomfort. She stopped moving, tilting her head.

_Lykoi. Wolf folks. Like us. _Her head tilted the other way, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

He shook his head, human fashion. _My clan - the Arashikage - called me o-kami. That's the closest thing they have to werewolves, in Japan... wolves that can become people. That's all I knew, until I started reading and..._

_And no books talk about the Lykoi, _she agreed. _It's all from the outsiders, the humans - THEY call us werewolves, and the things they say about us... well, Mama used to tell us that was just "ugly talk." We call ourselves Lykoi. _Her voice was sympathetic now, touched with confusion. _But didn't your pack - your clan - tell you that there were others? _

_My clan was human. I didn't have a pack. _

She blinked at him, astonishment clear in her eyes. Then a deep sadness appeared there, and she stepped forward, gently rubbing her muzzle against his.

_Oh... that's awful. Snake Eyes... that's... I'm so sorry. It must have been so hard for you._

He twisted his muzzle away, regarding her sidelong. _It was fine. I was fine. Why do you keep DOING that?_

_Doing... what? _She was visibly perplexed now, and pulled back, regarding him.

_All the... touching. The head-stuff. It's... it's..._

_It's our way of saying hello, _she said gently. _And that I'm glad to see you. It's Lykoi, and wolf. It's traditional._

_It's weird, _he said, then tried to soften the words. He didn't want to hurt her feelings, to embarrass her, but if she kept brushing up against him the way she had, if her touch kept making his skin tingle, he'd lose all control of his wolf. _I'm not so much the touchy-feely sort. Kind of a ninja... thing. _

_Uh-huh. _Her ears flicked skeptically, and he could see her mentally rearranging something. She took a few steps backward, opening a space between them. Her tail was still now, drooping a bit - she radiated uncertainty, and he was suddenly reminded of how she was back in human form, back at the Pit, any time he was around. He cursed silently, carefully shielding that thought from her. Shielding, at least, was something his masters had taught him to do early, and well.

_Scarlett, listen... I didn't mean... _Shouldn't it be easier to talk to a wolf than a woman? He stumbled over his words, looking down at his paws, then catching her eye. _I don't suppose you'd like to go for a run? _

One ear twitched - lupine indecision. Then she grinned, eyes bright again, and pivoted on her back legs, tail a happy banner. _Only if you don't slow me down, ninja man._

She bounded away and had a sizable lead before he managed to lurch into pursuit. She allowed him to get within a length of her before putting on the speed, leaving him in her dust. She laughed in his mind, glancing over her shoulder. _Try to keep up, now!_

Something in him lightened, lifted, and he stretched out into a full gallop. He was running, running under the moon, with the wind in his fur. He was wolf. He was free.

He was not alone.

To Be Continued -


	4. Chapter 4

**Lykoi**  
>by Catwings1026<p>

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm not Chuck Dixon, have no designs on his original work, and mean no offense - I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

**Author's Note: **Many apologies for the delayed update - my computer's been sick with a nasty virus, which turned out to be a nastier worm. Ugh. Anyway, this picks up with the flashback segment - and thanks to PhantomEmpress, Bronwynn, and others for their support and for checking up on me when I vanished. :) Reviews and suggestions are welcome, as always.

* * *

><p><strong>Several Months Later<strong>

_All I'm saying, _Snake Eyes said, loping easily along beside Scarlett, _is that there are some ways that a more humanoid form would be an advantage. Hands, for one. Don't you ever wish, when you're in wolfskin, that you had thumbs?_

Scarlett tried very hard to keep the laughter in her mind from telegraphing itself to her companion, and failed miserably. Snake Eyes glanced at her, his expression bland - the man never went off duty, not even on a beautiful night just meant for running.

_I'm serious, _he pressed.

_I know you are, _she replied, making her mental voice as sober as his, her green eyes twinkling at him the whole while. _You're never NOT serious, Snake._

They swerved off the game trail they'd been running, heading up a steep embankment. Since that first night several months earlier, they had contrived to meet almost every evening, leaving the Pit and arriving back separately - no sense drawing attention to two solitary Joes suddenly taking up together – to slip into wolfskin and run. They would rendezvous in the arroyo, then patrol the territories around the Pit, sometimes going as far as the borders of the nearest town. Real wolves were easily able to travel 50 or more miles a day; a circuit of even half that would not make a warrior of the Lykoi pant.

Now Scarlett flopped down on the sandstone ledge that afforded the best view of their home base, feeling the rock radiating the day's heat back through her pelt. Some feet away, Snake Eyes took up his preferred watching post on another slab, eyes on the Pit below, not looking at her but clearly awaiting her reply.

_So what you're asking, _she finally said, _is if you could stop the Change halfway? Intentionally?_

_Yes. I've tried, but... you were raised this way. I figure if there's a trick to it, you'd know. _Scarlett sighed inwardly. She'd managed to get Snake Eyes to stop calling them "werewolves" - a term that still made her neck fur bristle - but he just didn't seem comfortable using the term _Lykoi._

_You mean like... this? _

The impish tone in her voice should have been warning enough. Snake Eyes turned, and if a wolf face had been capable of looking like he'd suddenly been smacked upside the head with a two-by-four, his reaction - or so Scarlett thought- would have come very close. She smiled and batted her eyes coquettishly.

Her face was still fully lupine, but her ears had slid lower on a human skull. Her own long, burnished auburn hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, providing a modest screen for her breasts. From chest to mid-thigh, she was very nearly human - albeit sheathed in velvet-smooth close-lying fur - and she rolled languidly to rest on her stomach, as her wolf-tail made sitting human-fashion... well, painful, to be honest. She kicked her feet up, resting her chin in her hands.

_Siobhan put herself through law school by hiring out as Lupa of the Wild and belly-dancing for bachelor parties,_ she mused. _Sparkles, beads, the whole works. When we worked together, we made a pile. Mom would've killed us, if she'd found out, of course. We did this party for a pair of engaged identical twins, once, over at West Point... fun times._

He was staring at her, jaw agape, eyes ever so slightly glazed over. She tilted her head, then waved a hand up and down, breaking his gaze.

_Helloooo... base to Snake Eyes?_

_W__hat? _He started, looking a bit guilty. _I'll... ah... take that... as a pretty definitive "yes, it can be done." _Even his mental tone was slightly dazed.

Scarlett grinned. It was so fun to mess with Snakes... too easy, but fun. She rose to all fours, stretched enough to tease just that little bit more, and shifted completely back to wolf form with a tip-to-tail shake, shedding the halfway form as if she were shaking rain from her coat. Truthfully, she'd never liked that "anthro-wolf" shape... she'd done it to earn a few bucks, sure, but it felt... well, unnatural.

_Siobhan never liked going "four on the floor," as my brothers called it, _she continued, as though nothing untoward had occurred. _But the rest of us loved it. For birthdays or family get-togethers, we'd all pile into the station wagon and go camping, and my folks would let us stay in wolfskin all weekend... we'd sleep in a puppy-pile, all us kids, even the big ones, with the grown-ups all around the edges._

Her eyes misted slightly at the memory, and she looked away, the memory washing over her. An untidy pile of fur and flesh, falling asleep hearing her siblings and cousins breathing around her, feeling their heartbeats through their pelts, surrounded by a love so thick and constant it was almost tangible... and there were nights that she longed for that again, missed it with an ache that throbbed in the core of her. She sighed, but the sound that emerged was half a whimper.

_You miss them. _It was a statement, not a question, and she was surprised to see that Snake Eyes had risen from his rock and moved to her side - still a wolf length away, but as close as he'd get when they weren't running. His eyes, human-blue in his night-dark face, were soft and just a bit sad. For a moment, she thought he might come closer, flopping down to press against her as her own siblings had done, even in human form, when she'd needed their comfort. Touch was such an ingrained part of being Lykoi that it was second nature to them... the arm around the shoulder, the furry cheek pressed close.

For a moment he hesitated, and she could sense his wolf's frustration when, instead, he sat by the side of her rock - close, but still apart. She dropped her muzzle to her paws, regarding him.

_It's something to get used to, being dead to the world. Don't you miss your family? _She chose the word carefully - not clan, not pack - to allow him to make of it what he would. Snake Eyes hadn't told her much about his past... he didn't seem to like thinking of it, for that matter. But she knew he'd never known which of his parents was Lykoi - they'd surmised it would be only one, elsewise how would he have been born outside a pack? - and hadn't known himself to be Lykoi until after he'd been taken in by the ninja clan. He wouldn't speak of his first Change, but the emotions that telegraphed themselves to her any time they skirted the topic were of an old, old nightmare, a fear he tried hard to forget...

_Can't miss what you never had, _he replied, his tone brusque.

_I would, _she answered. Then, to pull the conversation out of dangerous territory, she added, _But then I'm not the baddest-ass ninja commando on the force... eating nails for breakfast and washing it down with a tumbler of lighter fluid._

_No, _he returned, and now his eyes seemed to laugh back at her. _You're just the alpha of your own private wolf pack, and you could eat a pronghorn bones, hooves, and all for dinner - then tackle a bull bison for dessert._

She pounced on him for that, rolling him off his feet, laughing as she danced away. In human form, he'd be able to wipe up the dojo mat with her - but in wolfskin, they were fairly evenly matched. His strength, her speed - they were a good pair.

_And don't you forget it, mister. _He snorted, shaking dust from his back. _So. Now that you've gone and gotten me all hungry - you coming to help me run down a snack?_

He couldn't hide the spasm of all-too-human disgust that crossed his face, and she rolled her eyes. For a man whose trade was making quick work of an enemy, who didn't flinch at spilling blood or witnessing the carnage of a firefight, Snake Eyes couldn't seem to unbend enough to let his wolf hunt. That sort of forced control wasn't just unnatural... Scarlett had a sneaking suspicion that it would have to be dealt with, sooner rather than later, or it might be dangerous.

For both of them.

_You can't keep your wolf on a chain, Snake._ She'd said it to him before, and now she let the annoyance edge her voice. _You're not a ninja in a wolf suit. You're Lykoi. Your wolf is part of who you are. _

_I can control it. _He turned away, refusing to meet her gaze, and his tail rose fractionally - he was putting on his "stubborn tail," her uncle used to say - "High tail, pigheaded wolf."

_You WANT to control it, _she countered. _I know that. But... you don't get it. You're halving your effectiveness by trying to force your wolf down. If you won't think like a Lykoi, think like a warrior. You're a ninja - didn't you ever wonder why it came so naturally to you? The meditation, getting in touch with the earth, being able to move and breath and flow like nature was just part of you? Didn't you ever stop to think where that came from? _

She wanted to go to him, to poke him hard with her muzzle, to force him to look at her... but that would accomplish nothing. She'd made that mistake before. Instead, she lowered her head, her ears, and stepped only a bit closer - allowing her body to speak to the tethered wolf inside him. She could feel its frustration in the electric ripple of his coat, in every subconscious twitch of his ears or tail or muzzle that spoke volumes to her. His wolf understood her - but she wondered, sometimes, just how much Snake Eyes himself understood.

His wolf, reading her posture, relaxed fractionally - _I'm not trying to challenge you, _her body told it, in a language it understood. Severed from its human half, the wolf could not understand her words, her thoughts - but it understood what its eye and ears and nose fed it. Snake Eyes, however, glanced at her, and she again saw the human part of him trying to shape wolf facial features into human body language - trying to raise an eyebrow he didn't have.

_I worry about you, _she said bluntly, tempering the statement with a gentle mental touch. But this was an old argument between them by now, and Snake Eyes wasn't having any of it.

_Don't, _he said. _I'm fine, Scarlett. I've got a handle on it._

_A leash, _she snapped, before she could stop herself. _But what if the leash breaks, Snake? Did you ever stop to think about THAT?_

His eyes met hers then - and she wished she hadn't said it. There was a nakedness to his gaze, a raw pain deep inside, that he did not want her to see - did not want to share. Oh, yes, he'd stopped to think about that, something in that haunted expression whispered. And once he'd started... he'd never stopped.

Before she could say another word to him, he'd whirled on his haunches and gone, loping down the steepest part of the embankment, leaving Scarlett alone in the moonlight.

* * *

><p><strong>The Present<strong>

Snake Eyes ran hard, but his mind was distant from his pounding paws, from the feel of the earth beneath him, the sky above, the desert night all around. He didn't want to be angry with Scarlett... but he felt the anger in him, felt it rumble to the surface in a soft growl.

She should understand. Of anyone, SHE should understand. She was a soldier. She knew you picked carefully for your team, the skills best suited to the mission. You wouldn't put Alpine on a recon with Torpedo, wouldn't stick Dusty up in the frozen north with Snow Job. In a situation like he'd be going into, he needed Helix - with her weirdly wired brain, her fraction of a second's jump on the competition. But in North Dakota, it had been Scarlett he'd wanted at his back - both when he hadn't known what they'd be going into, and after. Why couldn't she see that?

It wasn't as if he was replacing her... or leaving the pack.

_Where did THAT come from?_She was getting to him, getting under his skin, with all the wolf talk... well, wolves didn't DO hurt feelings. They were, at their core, subject to cold animal logic. All wolves defended the pack, but within a pack, the strongest wolves backed the strongest. They formed hierarchies, alliances, coalitions. He'd read about wolves, watched them from a distance, observed the nuances of wolf ritual and behavior, the formalities of the dominance game - trying, struggling, to understand that alien part of himself...

_So, just when I _need _you to think like a wolf, Scarlett, you have to go all HUMAN on me! _

Think like a wolf. _He _didn't want to think like a wolf. Where had that gotten him, back in North Dakota? He still remembered the taste of her blood on his tongue...

So much like that other blood, so long ago.

And she wanted him to release his wolf. If she only knew...

_No. I am not wolf. Not even halfway. Not now, not ever again. I am HUMAN. This body isn't anything more or less than my uniform... another sort of weapon, just another tool. A tool I can control._

The sound of the rifle shot pulled him up short, his pads skidding, his ears rotating, pinpointing the source.

Behind him.

_Scarlett..._

He was spun about and running before his mind could fully register the thought.

- To Be Continued -


	5. Chapter 5

**Lykoi** by Catwings1026

* * *

><p><strong>Disclaimer<strong>: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm not Chuck Dixon, have no designs on his original work, and mean no offense - I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

* * *

><p>Snake Eyes paced, glancing at the distant lights of the two pickup trucks, at the elongated human shadows thrown before them, at the two figures making their way beyond the light, one with a rifle resting on his shoulder. In the distance, a pack of coyotes yipped, wailed, then fell silent. From the direction of the town, a dog barked.<p>

He'd easily followed Scarlett's scent this far - but didn't dare go closer, not unless he had to. He didn't fear the man with the gun - but it would bring down all manner of trouble on his team, on their base, if rumors of a giant black wolf stalking the canyonlands began to circulate. He couldn't see Scarlett, couldn't hear her, couldn't touch her mind... and that last worried him more than the first two.

He raised his nose, confirming the scent that now came to him on the breeze... gunpowder and blood. Scarlett's blood. The wolf within him snarled, fighting him, furious at his hesitancy - its instinct, its one drive, was to go to her, go NOW, to put himself between her and the approaching men. His pulse escalated in response to the inner turmoil.

He considered Changing, going to her in human form - but that would be hardly better. Stories of a badly-scarred man running naked through the desert would attract even more attention than his wolf form would. The local law enforcement might write the "giant wolf" up to a trick of the eye, or one beer too many - but what good old boy would be dreaming up a naked man roaming around in the middle of the night? There would be search parties sent out, likely as not, just to rule out the possibility that he'd been the victim of some accident- and the General wouldn't like that, not one bit.

There had to be another way...

* * *

><p>Scarlett came to her senses amid the scents of beer and blood. Her blood, sharp and metallic-smelling. Beer on the skin and breath of... who? She kept her eyes tightly shut. Her shoulder was on fire - even an experimental twitch of her forepaw sent waves of white-hot pain through her, and she fought back a whimper. Feet - human feet - crunched on dirt, stopped too close for comfort. No beam of light crossed her closed eyelids - they didn't seem to have a flashlight, which was a mercy. She focused on playing dead.<p>

A toe prodded her belly. She could smell the men - two of them - and the gun, its metal smell still hot. One of the men spat contemplatively, and the tang of saliva and chewing tobacco spattered wetly inches from her nose.

"Holy..." one of the men breathed. "That is the biggest mother-fuckin' coyote I've ever seen. I didn't think they CAME that big. Wha'cha think - maybe one o' them Eastern coyotes, come back west?"

"I dunno, Tony..." the man's companion shuffled. "That looks way too big to be any coyote I've ever seen. You think it could be a wolf?"

"Naw... ain't got no wolves 'round here. That's just one big sucker coyote, and I'm gonna have her mounted - this here's trophy size, you just watch."

"Looks like you got a lucky shot, though... looks high to me. Almost like you jus' clipped her."

"Well, she ain't moving, that's fer sure."

Scarlett bent all her energy to the task of remaining still, keeping her breathing shallow. The pain in her shoulder was making her nauseous, but if she was going to come out of this alive, she had to think... and think fast.

_He winged my shoulder. Hurts like hell... but not fatal. He'll figure it out soon, though - and then they'll finish me off. I can't run on this leg... couldn't outrun that rifle at this range, even if I could. Think, Shana, think. How are you going to get out of this one?_

The wind shifted, and brought a scent to her nostrils... it was all she could do to keep herself from sitting bolt upright, from yelping a warning.

Snake Eyes.

He was here - close, but not too close. She could smell the hot-fur scent of a wolf who had recently come a distance at a dead run, knew the shot had called him here. In this case, at least, his insistence on behaving like a man in a wolf suit might keep him safe... her brothers would have been at her side in the blink of an eye, rifle or no; their drive to protect the pack would have overridden any human hesitation. Snake Eyes, at least, was probably weighing his options, rationally plotting out his next move.

She tried to still her thoughts, reach out to his mind... if he was close enough to smell, he might be close enough to touch mentally. But... no. Scarlett cursed silently when she could feel nothing, hear nothing from him.

She was, for all intents and purposes, on her own.

* * *

><p>Snake Eyes felt the growl in his chest, the fur on his shoulders bristling. He was drawing a blank... a huge blank, and time was running out. Or... had run out. No options open to him seemed feasible... as a human, he'd have been there in a heartbeat. He could have taken two civilians out with no effort – neutralized the threat, without leaving any lasting mark or serious damage.<p>

His wolf howled within him, a sound of raw animal frustration, and for a moment, he hated the animal inside – hated what he was, what was chaining him into helplessness...

As though answering his wolf, the distant coyotes started their song once more, yipping and yelping to the moon.

Snake Eyes's head snapped up, eyes focusing on the distant human figures, silhouetted against the residual headlight shine. And that inert mass on the ground before them... the one he was trying so hard not to look at...

_This had better work..._

* * *

><p>Scarlett heard the coyotes again, on the periphery of her awareness, begin their multi-voiced chorale. It distracted the men - momentarily, at least. She might have no choice but to try to run for it, run as best she could. Her shoulder was alternately throbbing hot and cold... the heat of intense pain, the cold of the night-wind blowing over her blood-soaked fur, the shoulder torn and bleeding. And then... another voice, rising above the coyote song.<p>

_Here. I'm here. I'm here. _The howl was lower than her own, a baritone to her tenor, and far below the wailing coyote soprano - but it resonated in her as she realized who, and what, it was.

Snake Eyes.

He'd never made so much as a sound before, not the low whuff of wolf laughter, not a whine or a whimper, since that first night when he'd cut off his howl mid-phrase. But now his voice carried to her, clear and low, bringing with it a sense of all that was Wolf.

The men jerked, startled.

"What the hell was that?"

The coyotes, hearing the stranger in their territory, howled back at him - louder now, with clear intent.

_Here – we're here. __Our land. Our prey. Ours. Ours._

But to the men, it was all one and the same - granted, any fool should have been able to differentiate wolf voice from coyote, but clearly, all they heard was a growing ring of sound.

_No - mine! _There was a challenge in Snake Eyes's voice now, and Scarlett wondered what the hell he thought he was doing... _My land. My prey. Mine. Mine._

_OURS! _shrilled the coyotes. _Ours! We are many. We will fight. Ours, ours, OURS!_

_MINE! _insisted Snake Eyes, and Scarlett could swear she heard a chuckle in his voice now. He was intentionally stirring up the coyote pack... and they were coming to meet his challenge. The men shifted uneasily.

"Charlie, maybe you'd best give me a hand with gettin' this coyote back to the truck before her babies come lookin' for their mama..." And she felt a hand close around each of her back legs.

She lunged then, muzzle snaking back though her shoulder screamed, teeth bared. The man Tony dropped her legs with a yelp... and then all hell broke loose. A sound, more roar than growl, erupted from the dark beyond – and something bounded over her on two legs, something tall and black-furred. Both men screamed, nearly falling over themselves as they backpedaled, and she saw Tony fumbling with his gun before a massive clawed hand smashed it from his grip.

"Oh shit... oh, sh..." Charlie's voice was lost in the gutteral howl that, at close range, was deafening. Coyote cries swelled up all around, frenzied. The men screamed again, frozen in place. Then the werewolf lowered his head, clenched his fists, and snarled – a sound that began low and ended in a harsh, vicious bark as the creature lunged forward... and, jarred from their horrified interia, the men fled.

Snake Eyes watched them go, chest heaving, then turned and knelt by Scarlett. His eyes, thank god, were still blue... still very much human. And pleased with himself, though trying to hide it, if the crinkle around the edges of those eyes was any indication.

_How bad is it? _he asked in her mind, gently probing the wound with a gnarled hand.

_Bad enough. He winged my shoulder... it's fractured, or broken. I can't walk on it... can barely move it and stay conscious._

_You're losing blood._

_Tell me something I don't already know, Snake. _She winced, trying to lick at the wound.

_Hang on. This is probably going to hurt – but we need to get you out of here. _Then his arms were scooping her up, gently as he was able, though a roaring filled her ears as the pain lanced through her. She felt the awkward rocking of a half-wolf, half human lope as Snake Eyes carried her back into the heart of the desert... and then the nausea rose up, the roar became a ringing silence, and she knew no more.

* * *

><p>Back where the dust of a pair of pickups still lingered in the air, the alphas of the coyote pack nosed the ground, whining and snuffling uncomfortably. The blood-soaked patch of earth was cooling, but they could not identify the odd mixture of scents that lingered... not coyote. Not dog. Bigger. Canine, and predator. Dangerous. And, most distressingly, the canine blended seamlessly with the scent of human. They were lucky, the eldest sensed, that the intruder had taken leave before they had arrived... a fight with this creature would not have gone well, even for a strong pack.<p>

Spread around the site, the lower-ranking pack members milled about, excited and anxious. The youngsters were overstimulated by the challenge-howl, the dash to meet and drive off the intruder, and the scent-rich air. They yipped softly amongst themselves, unsure of their next course of action, their paws obliterating the marks of the four-legged canine and the strange two-legged shadow-furred thing, just as Snake Eyes had hoped. They peered after his now-distant retreating form, but were not inclined to follow unless their alphas commanded it.

Finally satisfied that the pack territory was secure – and increasingly certain that pursuit would be unwise – the old coyote mother barked a command. She turned and loped off, her pack following in ones and twos, trotting back to their densite.

Bringing up the rear, a single straggler found the rifle lying on the ground. He growled at it – coyotes knew guns. Lip raised, he hiked his leg, urinated, then scratched hard with his rear paws, coating the hateful man-thing with dust.

When the men returned in the daylight, no trace of the previous night would remain but a dark stain on the earth, and the prints of many coyotes.

- To Be Continued -


	6. Chapter 6

**Lykoi**  
>by Catwings1026<p>

**Disclaimer**: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm not Chuck Dixon, have no designs on his original work, and mean no offense - I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

* * *

><p>He couldn't make it all the way back to the arroyo. Snake Eyes cursed inwardly, casting about for somewhere, anywhere, that would provide some shelter from human eyes. He was already regretting forcing the Change to that halfway anthro-wolf form… his muscles were strong, yes, but the body was awkward to move in, as though he were trapped halfway between a human ability to sprint and a wolf's easy loping gait. And his joints – maybe he'd done it wrong, the Change, or maybe it took practice to assume the shape of a werewolf, but every joint ached beyond what should be physically realistic based on the stress he'd put on them. He felt put together wrong, and his body was rebelling against its current architecture.<p>

It couldn't be helped, though. There was no way to carry Scarlett in wolf form, and he was faster in this shape than he could be in human skin.

_And Scarlett DANCED this way?_He shook off the thought and the image it called to mind. He'd have to have a long talk with her about how she'd managed it, if he ever wanted to use this particular body form again. For now, he could live with the pain. He glanced down, felt his insides drenched in ice water. Scarlett, however, couldn't live with the effects of prolonged blood loss…

She'd been silent since he'd lifted her, and though her eyes were open, they were glazed and staring – she was certainly in shock, though whether it was due to blood loss or the gunshot trauma, he wasn't sure. He'd seen Scarlett in action, knew she could handle any number of injuries under a wide range of combat situations… but that was in human form, where field medicine was part of training, where a medic somewhere nearby, where a teammate who could lend a helping hand. Coping with blood loss and an open wound was not standard training, even for the Joes – the focus was on stopping the bleeding itself, not managing to keep going if you couldn't because you didn't have hands or supplies. She was tough, but physically, there was only so much a body could take…

Her russet-hued fur was stained with her blood; the bullet had entered on an angle at her shoulder and exited on the same side of the body, possibly striking the shoulder blade; it could have simply nicked or fractured it, but might well have shattered something, for all he knew. He didn't have anywhere near a working grasp of canine physiology, but she was bleeding far more than he thought was right or normal. In a human, a shoulder wound was painful, but easily bound and immobilized; no vital veins or arteries ran nearby. In a wolf… he hadn't a clue.

_I need to stop the bleeding. That's got to be the first step. _Even at the lurchingly swift pace he was maintaining, it would take too long to get back to the arroyo where he'd stashed a medical kit with his own supplies. He needed shelter sooner than later, needed to get her stabilized…

And then, they'd need to come up with some explanation for their team when they walked back into the Pit…

_Cover story later. Shelter, now._

Even the canyonlands and the rocky slopes above their arroyo were too far off. Here, where the sparse vegetation was giving way to thicker stands of sagebrush, was their best chance for shelter. Some distance off, a large boulder jutted from the silver-green foliage – and in the lee of that stone, they could shelter. He'd dig them a place to lie lower than the vegetation, if he had to. He glanced down at Scarlett, saw that her eyelids had drooped nearly closed.

_Red… stay with me, Red. You can't sleep just yet._

…_? _The muddled thought was wordless, muzzy.

_You've got to stay awake. Talk to me._

_Talk about… what? _Her mental voice was slow, faint, as though he'd stirred her from sleep.

_Tell me about your family. _She didn't reply. They reached the boulder, and he set her down gently. They weren't the first to shelter here… there was a low, concave scrape at the base of the rock, smooth and hard-packed, curtained by sagebrush, and the place smelled of antelope.

'_m cold, Snake… _She was shivering now, and he realized that, deprived of his body heat, the difference would be palpable in her weakened state. He lowered himself beside her, trying to find a comfortable position for his unnatural physique. _No_…_ Change. _She lifted her head with obvious effort, looked at him. _Please._

Well, his wolf pelt would be warmer than what he could currently offer her… he backed off a pace, dropped to a crouch, and willed the Change to come. With the familiar stretching, shifting pain of the Change came relief for his aching joints. He shook himself from nose to tail, trotted back to her, hesitated only a moment before lowering himself beside her. He felt a faint, staticky tingle as their fur brushed… but more than that, as he settled closer to her, he felt her trembling. In wolf-form, he could hear the light, thready beat of her pulse, the soft panting of her breath… but the trembling coursed deep into him, and he pressed closer, willing it to ease.

The surge of emotions was entirely unexpected, like a wave swamping a boat in the ocean… anxiety, anger – anger turned inward, confusion, frustration, a loneliness so deep and profound that it seemed a physical ache. It wasn't until the images and memories began to flood him that he realized the emotions weren't his own.

They were strong – each an echo of a moment in the past, Scarlett's past, with sound and sensory perception intact, with emotion woven about and through each, and he felt those memories as though they were his own.

_A pack of young wolves running at a deer – a large buck – who turned to fight rather than flee; leaping despite the lowered head…a tangible, physical ache as the phantom antler gored deep._ Scarlett flinched as he did the same – two pelts twitched in unison. _Shame. Embarrassment. Her brothers, laughing at her foolishness._

_Safety. Love. A tangible sense of family. The sensation of warm bodies pressed close, many ribs rising and falling in the cadence of sleep, dreams passing from one to another as Scarlett, half-awake, tasted each before opening her dreams to her family, her pack, and drifting to sleep._

_Wrestling with her brothers in the back yard, a joyous free-for-all where sides were constantly shifting, feeling their human skin and muscle and remembering their wolfskin forms, pointedly ignoring the sister who insisted loudly that she was too old for such roughhousing._

_The chaos of greeting brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles, family returned from work and college and lives – the reunion deep in the autumn woods, tails lashing, whining and yelping, bumping heads and shoulders, leaping and dancing and wrestling in wild abandon – __too long since we've all been together, too long! _

Snake Eyes shook his head hard, pulled away, half rising – but a wave of chill that was not his own coursed through him as he broke physical contact, and his wolf rebelled, forcing his body back to ground again, close and warm, curling about Scarlett protectively, defiantly.

_The cry of a solitary coyote joined by its pack, under the desert moon. Brushing back the tears that sprung up, forcing down the responding inner howl of her lonely wolf, cursing softly before turning, boots crunching on soil, returning to the Pit. Staring at the photograph of her family, framed beside her bunk, touching each face in turn. _

_An image of a face swathed in bandages, an odd sense of familiarity that she brushed off… the urgency of leaving the hospital taking precedence, then the sound and shock wave of the explosion… The interior of a van, focusing on the road while a male voice asked, "You in?" Reaching back to clasp the raised hand. Feeling that odd snap of static that was not static when she touched his hand, half-turning, but not able to question further._

All of it, the sights and sounds and emotions, all of it entered him in flashes that took barely seconds, but the memories embedded themselves in his consciousness, became his own, lingered as though he'd felt them himself…

He tried to pull back mentally now, if he could not do so physically, and again his wolf resisted. Snake Eyes forced his dominance – he was the master of his own mind, years of discipline and meditation lending him strength. The wolf struggled, but submitted. He slammed up his mental shields, blocking the cascade of memory and emotion… but the withdrawal brought with it an ache that was his alone, a sudden emptiness, an echo within himself; in his mind and heart, his wolf keened for something it had never known, something new and entirely unfamiliar, something the man had never considered needing…

_You can't miss what you never had, _he heard his own mental voice say. And now his wolf snarled at him, its rage hot and flaring, threatening to engulf him with self-loathing…

Scarlett, sensing his inner struggle, tried to look at him, but her head fell back, her breathing faster, shallow. What was she sensing from him? Were his own memories, his own secrets, tumbling into her mind? The thought froze him…

_S__orry__…_Was her voice so faint because he was blocking her? It sounded distant in his mind. _Too tired… to block… sorry._

She was spent. Emotionally, physically… there was no reserve left for her to call upon to protect him, as he suddenly realized she'd been doing since their first meeting, from what was second nature to her. Knowing his discomfort, seeing his unease, she'd held back, shielding him from what was alien to him, from the free sharing of mind and heart, from the easy camaraderie she'd grown up knowing, from what she longed for, missed, yearned for… what she needed, now, to heal.

All this time, she'd been protecting him from half of her very self. Trying to be a woman in wolfskin, rather than who she was – woman and wolf, inseparable, one entity. And now, when pain and fatigue had eaten her defenses to the bone, she blamed herself for not being stronger… for needing something she didn't want to ask him to give.

He lowered the mental shields he'd thrown up, and as he did so, felt her straining to keep her thoughts from him. Woman and wolf worked as one, pressing the memories back – but it cost her dearly to do so. Mentally he reached for her, lending her his strength even as he took the burden of her exhaustion to himself, allowing her memories and emotions to flow about him even as he spoke.

_I've never had a pack before, _he told her. _Tell me how to help you. _He felt her hesitate, felt her uncertainty.

_Your wolf… _she said finally, and even her mental voice trembled as her body shook._ Your wolf knows. Just… trust him._

He wanted to protest. He wanted to refuse… trust his wolf? When he'd seen her lying there, seen her blood, smelled her pain, it had been all he could do to hold the beast, to keep its animal rage in check… it would have torn out the throats of the men who had hurt her, savaged them as completely as he'd wanted to do in North Dakota to the assassins who had murdered his team.

_No. Not… the wolf. _Scarlett shuddered, as though mind-speaking were a physical effort now. _Wolves… don't do… vengeance. That was YOU, Snake. Your wolf… only does… what it thinks… YOU want…_

And with those words, his wolf broke free, taking advantage of the sudden shock her words caused… and to his surprise, in the wolf there was no rage, no blind fury. Only a sense of concern, a need to protect, to comfort, to heal. Without realizing what he was doing, he dropped his nose to Scarlett's cheek and nuzzled her, a silent promise passing between them. Sensing her relief at the gesture, he surrendered control to the wolf, willing it to do what was needed.

His attention turned to her bloody shoulder. It smelled wrong, he realized… the metallic tang of blood was blended with the acrid bite of gunpowder and shell-casing metal, and a layer of dust and grit coated the wound. His tongue flicked out, clearing the dust from the wound, and the scent of wrongness faded a bit.

Something deep inside him stirred at that, an understanding that was wordless, but insistent. He began, hesitantly at first, to lick the wound, cleaning it of debris – and as he did so, he felt her body relaxing into his own, the wracking shudders diminishing. He drew himself tight about her, holding her close, continued with the rhythmic cleansing.

A warmth flooded through her - unshielded, he felt it instantly, a warmth of spirit as well as a physical warmth, a relief so profound that, if she'd been in human form, tears would have threatened to spill. He hadn't realized the depth of her loneliness until his touch made it evaporate… hadn't known that something so simple could affect her so instantly, so deeply. As he continued to cleanse the open wound with growing confidence, she relaxed into his side, her muscles uncoiling from a tension she'd held, half-unconsciously, for too long. She was safe. She was not alone.

Not any more.

_Thank you, _she said, her mental voice small. _That feels… good. _

_Rest, _Snake Eyes answered. The weariness was sweeping over her again, and she couldn't think clearly, but it was safe to let her sleep, now. Sleep would bring healing. And he would keep watch through the night. She would not be alone. _Just rest, now._

_-TBC-_


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer**: G.I. Joe and all associated characters and concepts are property of Hasbro Inc. and IDW comics. I'm just one of a large family of fans who likes telling family stories – no profit needed, no profit earned.

* * *

><p>The full moon regarded the scene in the garden with an unblinking silver eye, distant and chill as the early spring air. It cast a silver sheen over the ornamental grasses and shrubs, the dwarfed trees, the stone wall just slightly taller than a man's head. The nearby buildings, Asian in architecture, seemed inked on the starry sky; warm golden rectangles of diffuse light, windows shielded by translucent shoji screens, glowed like floating lanterns. Unseen water gurgled somewhere close by, and from the other side of the wall, voices murmured and laughed in passing, then were gone.<p>

The scene would have been one of peace, if had not been for the scent of blood, heavy on the night air.

Into this dream Scarlett stepped, walking carefully – she hadn't expected to find herself here, particularly not in human form, but she also knew that few things involving Snake Eyes would be what anyone expected. This was his dream, and her dream-self took the form he found most comfortable. Because her dreaming self was in wolfskin, however, her wolf-senses remained intact even when her form did not… and the metallic tang of blood filled her nostrils, mingled with the dispersing scent of animal rage, fear, and despair.

She found the dog first. It was a large Akita, copper and white, sprawled on the garden grass, its body still warm but very, very dead. Its muzzle was flecked with blood and its throat was torn wide, an angry red slash against white chest-fur. The ground beneath the dog was sticky with spilled blood soaking into the earth.

A whine, and Scarlett turned. In the shadow of the wall, barely visible, cowered a young black wolf, barely more than a pup – Lykoi, his blue eyes wide with fear. The smell of the dog's blood was strong on him, but even stronger was the roil of emotion – fear, guilt, shame, confusion. His ears were flat, his tail tucked, and he trembled in an agony of indecision: hide, or flee?

_Snake __Eyes_…

Whether sensing or hearing her thought, the young wolf turned to her.

_They__'__ll __kill __me__…_ His mental voice was lighter than his adult self, and it quavered with the fear of a child. _She __was __the __master__'__s __dog__… __when __they __find __out, __they__'__ll__… __they__'__ll__…_

The soft sound of wood sliding on wood, and the garden brightened slightly. A screen door slid open far enough to reveal a small, lithe silhouette.

"Kaminari?" A girl's voice, soft and filled with good humor. The young wolf cowered back, trying to vanish into the shadows. "Kaminari, where are you?" She stepped out into the garden, giggling. "Are you hiding from me, silly girl?"

Scarlett felt a wash of sick apprehension – whether it came from her own gut, knowing too well what was coming, or from Snake Eyes was irrelevant; she felt it as her own. She watched the girl move into the courtyard, her movements exaggerated as she played at sneaking up on her pet. Then she froze, her eyes riveted to the still figure in the grass, and a strangled cry choked from her throat.

"Kaminari!" the child wailed, flinging herself down beside the dog. Tears flowed freely down her face as she gingerly stroked the stiffening ears, the unresponsive cheek. "Oh, Kaminari…"

The sorrow in the girl's voice seemed to tug at the young wolf, and he stepped forward, seemingly against his own will. The girl could not hear him, but the movement caught her attention, and her face snapped up, her eyes locking with his. She gasped… then screamed.

His ears flattened, his lips pulled back in a terrified snarl – for a long moment the wolf-child crouched, the agony of indecision plain on his face. Shouts from within the building, the sounds of running feet – and suddenly his eyes shifted from blue to amber, and he leaped at the still-screaming girl. Her death was quick and bloody, but likely painless. Her body sagged across her dog, her blood staining the copper and white fur scarlet.

In a fluid motion, the wolf whirled and leaped, clearing the wall in one bound – and then Scarlett was alone in the garden. She had only a moment's glimpse of figures pouring from doors, some leaping through open windows, before turning and scaling the wall herself, following Snake Eyes deeper into the dream.

* * *

><p>When her feet touched the ground, she was on American soil. Leaf litter, loam, the trunks of a deciduous forest before spring touched bare branches with green. North Dakota. A rustle, and she turned – and saw her own dead body sprawled in the leaves, eyes wide and startled in death, staring up at the leafless canopy and the low gray sky. Drag marks showed that it had been tugged from the open field where armed men patrolled – Lawhound and his team. Snake Eyes, the Snake Eyes she knew in human form, crouched naked beside her prone form, trembling hand drawing back from a throat torn wide and still bleeding. His human fingers were covered in her blood, and the bottom half of his ravaged face was smeared with it.<p>

"This isn't the way it happened," she told him softly. "Not even close." His face snapped up to regard her, and his eyes were the amber eyes of a wolf. Slowly, gently, she dropped to a crouch, reaching out to him across her own still form, and lay a hand on his cheek, ignoring the stickiness of the blood. "And what you just showed me… before, in Japan. That wasn't the way it happened, either, was it? It's just how it feels to you."

He bared his teeth in a feral snarl, pulling back from her. She dropped her hand but continued, unfazed.

"It was your first time, wasn't it? Your first Change. And it scared the shit out of you, distorted what you remember."

He made a sound somewhere deep in his chest, something between a groan and a snarl, and was suddenly wolf again, glaring at her with his own blue human eyes.

_What the hell do you know about it? You – you've always had your pack. You can't know what it's like!_

"You're right." She sat back on her heels, regarded him evenly. "I don't know what it's like to grow up outside a pack. But I do know how bad my first Change was. Just because you're part of a pack doesn't mean the first time is easy… especially if you don't see it coming." She waited a moment. "I know you didn't kill that girl, Snake. Just like you didn't kill me… no matter how much you might have wanted to. Or still do, maybe." She grinned, tilting her head to the side. "My brothers used to say I have that effect on men. Just part of my Southern charm." He snorted, looked away. "You don't have to show me what really happened. That's personal… first times are. But if you want to tell me… I'll listen."

In an instant, they were back in the walled garden, under the full spring moon. She was in wolfskin now, and this time, Snake Eyes sat beside her, his black battle-gear on, his face obscured by the protective visor. Somehow, she wasn't surprised… even in a dream, he felt the need to protect himself from the memory. She leaned close to him, nudged his arm with her nose.

_You__'__re __not __alone, __you __know. __We__'__re __in __this __together. _He turned his face to her, regarding her silently, then gently caressed her cheek with one gloved hand.

_I __know_, the gesture said, though he did not speak now_.__Thank __you_.

A strangled cry drew their gazes to a brighter corner of the garden – a door slid wide, allowing a gangly figure to stagger through. Blonde haired, blue-eyed, the boy looked nothing like the man Scarlett knew , but she had no doubt who he was. Ten years old, maybe twelve… that was the age when the Change came to most Lykoi children. The boy who would become Snake Eyes looked confused, ill, and terrified. His face turned to the moon above as one hand slid the door shut, and suddenly he doubled over, heaving and retching, vomiting on the garden grass. He rose, choking and gasping, eyes streaming tears, and stumbled away from the door. He reached a cherry tree, its blooms whitely luminous in the moonlight, grasped its trunk like a lifeline… then fell to all fours.

You need to disrobe before the Change. In a pack, when the first Change obliges and can be brought on during the First Moon ceremony, the shame of being naked in front of your entire family is excruciating – but it at least spares you the pain of Changing in human clothing.

Scarlett grimaced as she watched the boy's form writhe and heave, straining against his clothing, the weaker fabric giving way, but not all of it – not by far, She wanted to turn her face away from the scene before her… but more, from the memories it awoke in herself. She knew personally the pain of machine-stitched seams cutting into your shifting flesh, rending it, leaving it cut and bleeding as your body forced its way through the fabric, feeling the weaker weave ripping away as the hard, tight seams cut deeper and deeper until finally, fabric hit bone and burst apart – leaving only agony behind, a bone-deep wound that would not heal until wolfskin reverted to human form. When she could not watch more, she turned and pressed her face into Snake Eyes's shoulder, eyes closed, and waited for the sounds of pain to diminish as the wolf-form took ownership of the flesh.

_Oh, Snake… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… It was awful, I know._

When she turned her face once more to the garden, a young black wolf lay in the grass, panting, eyes glazed in pain. He was already bleeding from multiple wounds where the last of his clothing had held his human flesh in place, then torn through muscle and sinew. He was spent, entirely spent, and barely raised his head as a rumbling growl made the dog's presence known.

Kaminara stepped from the shadows, hackles raised, ears flat. Her eyes were dark and hard as she approached the strange form stiff-legged. She had not reacted to the boy's sudden arrival – she knew him, recognized him as clan. But this – this new creature on the grass was not clan, not one of her people. She did not waste energy barking an alarm. She knew what to do. This was an intruder, and she would deal with it as with any enemy. The strange beast would not survive long enough to harm her people as it had clearly harmed the now-vanished boy.

In an instant she had the wolf by the throat, shaking and shaking, her growls rising into snarls of fury. Beside Scarlett, Snake Eyes raised his hand to his throat, and she realized…

_That__'__s __why __you __don__'__t __speak. __It __happened __during __that __first __Change. _He didn't respond.

A second sound blended with the sound of the dog's fury – more a strangled roar than a growl as the wolf ripped its throat free of the dog's teeth, and suddenly, the young wolf was on his feet, resisting the dog's assault. His eyes flashed amber in the half-light, any trace of his humanity gone – faced with its own imminent destruction, the wolf had asserted its dominance, seizing control of body and mind, and now it fought with a single-minded intensity.

The fight was in most respects evenly matched. The dog, a warrior in her own right, fought with generations of her breed's protective nature on her side, fought with a mind and body honed and refined to be the perfect canine warrior. If her adversary had been a human, she would easily have overpowered him – fully grown men were known to fall under the frontal assault of a guardian Akita defending its home and family.

But this opponent was Lykoi, his strength fueled by a wild thing's drive to survive at all costs, his lupine intelligence augmented by the human mind behind it – for even though the wolf-mind was dominant, it could access the memory and skills of its human half. The wolf knew what the dog was, knew where to bite and where to hold, knew dimly of the boy's training in human hand-to-hand combat, knew of leverage and thrust that could give a smaller fighter the edge over a larger – and this wolf was the equal of the dog in sheer size and muscle.

A feint to the left, then a bounding leap – and the wolf had the dog by the throat, cutting off the windpipe in a savage clamp before the dog could bark one last warning. Using the dog's weight against her, the wolf whipped about, teeth set in the dog's throat-fur, and muscle and sinew tore loose in a spray of blood. The dog wheezed, then collapsed into a growing puddle of her own blood – she would die quickly. The wolf, bleeding from his own Change-born wounds and the dog's attack, dragged himself into the shadows and fell, gasping, in a heap of black fur.

The screen door the boy had so recently passed through opened, and a girl's form appeared. She called a name Scarlett did not recognize, stepped into the garden, then called for the dog. From here the scene was familiar – the stunned recognition of the fallen dog, the sobbing, the girl prostrate over her pet's body. But now another form, a grown man, appeared in the doorway. The girl half-turned, face a mask of tears, then fled into his arms. Her words were a gabble, but Scarlett recognized the dog's name and the word "uncle."

The man stroked the girl's hair, holding her for a moment, then ushered her inside. He slid the door shut behind her, turned to the garden – but his eyes rested on the dog only briefly. As though honing in on a sound, a scent, the man paced carefully across the grass – and knelt by the side of the wolf. The wolf, his eyes human-blue once more, scrambled to his feet, cowering, tried to flee – but the man spoke softly to him, words that even Scarlett's lupine ears could not detect.

The last thing she saw was the young wolf sagging to the ground, his eyes miserable, submitting to the man's touch as the master's hands began probing his wounds.

Scarlett shook her head, fragments of the dream clinging to her mind, and sat up. Beside her, Snake Eyes did not move – his body still pressed warmly against her own, his head resting on his paws as though asleep… but his eyes were open, gazing out across the open sage-tufted lands, focused on the far horizon, brightening with the first traces of false dawn.

_She __was __only __doing __her __job,_ he said. _Kaminari, __I __mean. __Her __name__ – __it __meant__ '__Thunder __Goddess.__' __Kimi __told __me __it __was __because __even __as __a __puppy, __she __growled __like __thunder._

_Kimi. __That __was __the __little __girl? _Scarlett laid her own head on her paws, turning her eyes to follow his gaze.

_The Hard Master's niece. She was an orphan, like me… we were friends. Until that night._

_It __wasn__'__t __your __fault. _The harshness in her voice, the defensiveness, surprised her, and drew a reproachful glance from her companion. _It __wasn__'__t! __The __dog__ – __Kaminari__ – __she __was __doing __what __she __was __meant __to __do.__But __she __attacked __you__… __you __had __to __defend __yourself!_

_Did __I? _His voice was softer now, and unexpectedly sad. _Maybe. __When __the __wolf __took __control__… __I __was __glad. __But __the __wolf__ – __he __was __so __frightened, __so __full __of __the __blood __and __the __fight, __that __he __would __have __attacked __Kimi, __too. __He __wanted __to__ – __take __out __the __only __witness, __then __run __for __the __mountains, __for __the __woods. __I __barely __managed __to __hold __him __back__… __and __even __now, __when __I __dream __of __it, __I __can __taste __the __blood __on __my __teeth__…_

They were silent for a long moment, and she felt him shift, ever so slightly, away from her. She sighed softly. It had been nice, while it lasted.

_Is __it __a __Lykoi __thing?_ he asked, eyes still focused on the distance. _That __thing __you __did. __Coming __into __my __dream. __Is __it __because __your __pack __showed __you __how, __or__…_

_It__'__s __a __Lykoi __thing, _she replied. _Dreamwalking. __You __don__'__t __ '__do__' __it. __It __just __sort __of__… __happens. __It__'__s __like __speaking __with __your __mind__ – __it__'__s __natural __for __us, __when __you__'__re __sleeping __together, __fur __to __fur, __or__… _She paused, reconsidered her words, then continued. _I__'__d __have __told __you, __but__… __well, __the __topic __doesn__'__t __work __its __way __into __conversation __very __easily._

_You've done it before?_

_All __the __time__…__ with __my __family. __It __was __part __of __the __fun, __camping __out, __sleeping __in __a __puppy __pile__… __my __brother __Sean __liked __to __try __to __spook __up __our __dreams, __give __us __nightmares. __My __youngest __brother __Finn__'__s __dreams __were __fun__… __he __had __a __great __imagination __as __a __kid. __My __folks, __they__'__d __join __in, __sometimes, __to __give __us __extra __lessons __that __we__'__d __need __in __the __real __world__… __Mom __could __shape __the __dreamwalk __to __whatever __she __wanted. __I __could __never __do __that, __not __even __with __practice. _Her voice took on a wistful note, and she pretended not to see him glance at her.

_So __that__'__s __how __you __knew __my __dreams __weren__'__t __showing __the __memories __right? _His tone was so consciously neutral that she knew he was holding back his discomfort… trying to, anyway.

_No,_ she replied. _I __knew __because __I __know __**you**, __Snake. __And __because __my __grandfather __used __to __read __us __kids __Aesop__'__s __fables__… __he__'__d __give __us __a __quarter __for __each __moral __we __could __explain._ He shot her a curious glance. _'__The __child __is __father __to __the __man.__' __I __knew __you __wouldn__'__t __hurt __me, __even __in __North __Dakota, __when __you __were __so __angry__ – __so __I __knew __you __couldn__'__t __have __hurt __Kimi __then, __when __you __were __first __Changed, __and __so __scared._

She could feel him turning this over, coming to terms with it. _I__'__m __sorry __I __didn__'__t __warn __you__ … __I __should __have __tried, __last __night __especially__… _

_You __were __a __bit __busy __trying __to __keep __from __bleeding __to __death, __if __I__'__m __remembering __right. _He glanced at her, and now his voice seemed to be hiding a laugh. _So. __Do __I __need __to __worry __about __it __happening __again? __You __said,__ '__when __you__'__re __sleeping __together, __fur __to __fur,__OR__…'_

If she could have blushed, she would have… but the humor hiding in his tone was a welcome change, so she looked him full in the face, her jaw dropping into a wolf's grin.

_That __depends __on __whether __you __plan __to __be __curling __up __with __me __again __any __time __soon,_ she teased. _Like __I __said__-__it __just __sort __of__… __happens. __Fur-to-fur__… __or __skin-to-skin. __The __closer __the __contact, __the __stronger __the __connection. _She gave that a moment to sink in, then shook her head in the wolf equivalent of a shrug, glancing away. _At __least, __that__'__s __what __Siobhan __told __me._

_Uhmm. __Right. __I__'__ll__… __ah__… __keep __that __in __mind. _He stood, too suddenly, and shook himself from nose to tail as she laughed silently at his discomfort. _So__… __we__'__d __better __take __a __look __at __that __shoulder, __and __start __thinking __of __a __cover __story__… _He bent over her, nosing her shoulder. The bleeding had stopped, and the shoulder, though torn, looked much better in the faint light of approaching dawn. She turned her head, an action that no longer provoked a spasm of pain, and sniffed it.

_No __infection,_she pronounced. _I__'__ll __be __sore __for __a __few __days__… __but __it __comes __with __the __territory._

_You__'__re __not __worried __someone __will __notice?_He seemed astonished, staring at her. _I__'__ve __got __some __gauze __and __bandages __back __with __my __clothes__… __but __it __won__'__t __hide __much __if __it __starts __bleeding __again. __And __how __do __you __plan __on __requisitioning __enough __to __keep __that __bandaged __and __clean __without __a __visit __to __the __infirmary?_

Now it was her turn to stare. _What __on __earth __are __you __talking __about?_

She blinked, shaking her head._ You__'__ve __never __been __wounded __in __wolfskin, __have __you? __Don__'__t __answer __that__… __stupid __question __for __a __ninja. __Well, __the __short __answer __is__… __I __don__'__t __need __to __hide __anything. __Once __I __Change, __this __will __close __up__… __and __if __there__'__s __no __infection __and __no __silver __in __the __wound, __the __worst __I__'__ll __have __is __a __bad __bruise. __Broken __bones, __flesh __wounds__ – __it__'__s __all __the __same __when __you __Change. __It __all __heals __up._

_That__'__s__… __handy._He seemed less surprised than speculative, as though assessing what advantage this could give him in combat. _I __suppose __you __knew __that, __growing __up __in __a __pack __and __all._

_I __kinda __had __to, __Snake. __I __had _**four ****brothers**_ – __if __things __didn__'__t __heal __up __when __I __Changed, __I__'__d __have __had __a __lot __of __explaining __to __do __when __people __started __asking __about __all __those __black __eyes, __bruises, __bites, __cuts, __scrapes__… __but __it __wasn__'__t __something __my __folks __taught __us. __We __just __sort __of __figured __it __out __on __our __own._

_So if things heal on their own when you Change…_

_Why __didn__'__t __I __Change __last __night? _She bristled a bit at his tone._ THAT __was __something __my __parents __**did **__tell __us. __You __don__'__t __Change __when __you__'__re __hurt __or __sick. __It__'__s __a __natural __thing __for __us __to __do__ – __but __you __still __need __to __have __your __head __in __place, __and __you __still __need __to __focus. __If __you __try __to __Change __when __you__'__re __not __healthy__… __well, __it__'__s __not __going __to __be __pleasant._

_Oh. _His mental voice was subdued. _I __guess __there__'__s __a __lot __I __missed__… __being __a __lone __wolf, __so __to __speak. _There was an awkward silence before he looked at her, catching and holding her gaze. In a quieter voice than she'd ever heard him use, he spoke again. _Will __you __help __me __catch __up?__Learn __to__… __to __be __more__…_

_Learn __to __be __part __of __a __pack? _She felt a warmth inside at his question, at his hesitancy. She wanted to nuzzle him, but held back. _You__'__ll __pick __it __up __in __no __time. _She braced her paws, stretched, then rose and shook herself, grinned at him. _We__'__re __pack __now. __A __small __pack__… __but __a __pack._

_We__'__re __in __this __together. _It was a statement, not a question.

_You __got __it, __big __guy._She tilted her head, regarding him a moment longer._ I__'__m __going __to __touch __you __now. __Try __not __to __freak __out, __okay? _Not waiting for his response, she moved close and rested her head on his neck for several heartbeats. _Wolf __hug,_ she explained. _For __last __night. __Thank __you._

The expression on his face was unreadable as she stepped away, but he hadn't flinched or pulled back. Surprising her, he moved towards her then, and gently, hesitantly, returned the gesture.

_You__'__re __welcome, _he said. Then, matching his pace to hers, they started off for the arroyo… and the Pit.

-To Be Continued -


	8. Epilogue

_**EPILOGUE**_

Arriving back at the Pit separately didn't fool anyone. Even with Snake Eyes giving her a good hour's lead, the rumor mill was well and truly kick-started.

_That__'__s __the __military __for __you, _Scarlett thought sourly. _One __of __the __things __we __do __better __than __anyone__… __come __in __fast, __kick __butt __hard, __and __spread __say-so __at __the __speed __of __sound._

"You got something to smirk about?" That was Duke, walking at her elbow, pinning another greenshirt with a glare that sent him and his buddies scuttling. Then, rounding on a perfectly innocent bystander, "Don't you have something to do? NOW?"

Scarlett sighed, closed her eyes for a fraction of a second. She wasn't certain what would happen first… if Duke would take someone out for looking at her wrong, or if she'd clock him for playing bodyguard. She punched the elevator button harder than she needed to, staring fixedly at the doors until they slid open.

The moment they slid closed, they both spoke at once – both voices angry, matching glare for glare.

"Duke, I don't need…"

"Do you have any idea what…"

They both paused, each stepping back, not meeting the other's gaze. Scarlett took a long, deep breath… calm. He was being… Duke. The same Duke he'd always been. The knight-errant, convinced that she needed him to fight her battles and run off the rabble. There was a time she'd loved him for that… so she forced her voice down to a conversational level, even if she wouldn't look him in the eye.

"Duke. I appreciate what you're trying to do. But I don't need a big brother. I'm a big girl… I can take care of myself."

"I know you can, Red." He'd calmed as she had, though his displeasure still sparked behind his eyes. "But your reputation? Doesn't look like you're taking much care of that."

"I was off duty. If I decide to sleep out under the stars – that's my business."

"So that's the story you're sticking to?"

"I don't see why not. It's the truth." And it was… that was the beauty of it. When he didn't reply, she fixed him with a glare every bit as potent as the one he'd turned on the unfortunate greenshirt. "I don't like what you're not saying, Duke."

"And I don't like what people ARE saying – and you know damn well how soldiers talk!" The return glare was unrepentant. "Listen – I know it's long over with us. Fine. And I know I've got no say in your private life – but you know that reputation is everything for a woman in your position. You know you're held to a higher standard than any man. And you know damn well that people are watching both of you, ever since your pet ninja took up with Helix. Do you really want to play lead in his little soap opera?"

She flinched, but the door sliding open prevented her from either slapping him or flaying him with a few choice words. Instead, she left the elevator at a brisk, angry pace, Duke following a millisecond behind. He rounded the corner steps behind her – and shoulder-slammed Snake Eyes, coming from the other direction. Ahead, Scarlett hadn't missed a step – but Duke glared at the black-clad commando before continuing down the hall.

When he glanced back, Snake Eyes had already gone, as though he hadn't even paused to glare back.

Maybe he hadn't.

* * *

><p><em>General Hawk's Office<em>  
><em>Later that afternoon<em>

" So Snake Eyes and Scarlett decided to bivouac in the canyonlands last night." Hawk studied the young blonde from across his desk, standing beside the chair despite the invitation to sit. "Together, I assume?"

"Staggering the return to base wouldn't fool a high school freshman, and they both know it." Helix grimaced. "I backtracked them from that arroyo into the sagebrush steppe… found where they lay up. One of them was wounded. There was a little blood. And tracks coming from the direction of town – one pair. Biped."

"Biped?" Hawk's eyebrows rose. "So he's been playing around with that wolfman form after all?"

"That's what it looks like." Helix looked decidedly bored. "I followed it back a ways until it got lost in a cross-trail. From what I can tell, Scarlett hit trouble somewhere outside the reservoir and Snakes came running. He carried her to the sagebrush steppe, and they lay up there until morning, then came back. They split up at the arroyo, came back to base an hour apart. End of story. Pretty much confirms that they're known to each other, anyhoo. And that's what you wanted to know, right?"

"Mm." The general steepled his fingers, contemplating the ceiling for a moment. "I tell you, Agent Helix, this whole 'don't ask, don't tell' thing is more a mess than the politicians who dreamed it up could even start thinking."

"That's why I'm glad I'm not military, general."

A sigh, and Hawk rose. "Sometimes, Helix, I think you've got the right of it. We'll have to call them in, then, once your team gets back from Nepal."

"You think that's wise?" One elegant eyebrow quirked upwards. "Snakes came clean with you when he signed on… Scarlett's another story. You think she'll buy into what you've got in mind?"

"This is the military, Agent Helix." Hawk's eyes glinted like those of a predatory bird. "Buying in isn't something that matters much to us."

END


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